Dave Buchner

I’ve read all the Strike books and have loved them all… except this one. 1000 pages and could have been done and dusted in 400-500! Overly complicated plot and I found the endless online chats irritating and distracting. Without knowing who the actual online characters are, the chats are meaningless unless you have a photographic memory and can remember who said what, to whom, over the last 1000 pages …. Strike and Robin go round and round in circles for 950 pages not really making any progress and as the author’s goal of reaching 1000 pages is looming rapidly - they suddenly jump to a conclusion and uncover the perpetrator. TBH I took me 2 months to wade through this and the only reason I stuck with it was to see if Strike and Robin finally get together!